Memorandum of Understanding Between the Healthy Environments Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada, and the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Health Canada

Purpose

The purpose of this Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is to outline principles for cooperation, to agree to establish mechanisms that facilitate the exchange of information and advice, and to promote strong working relationships for the management of issues related to pesticides and drinking water between the Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch (HECSB) and the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA).

Background

HECSB' s mandate is to help Canadians maintain and improve their health by promoting healthy and safe living, working and recreational environments and by reducing the harm caused by tobacco, alcohol, controlled substances, environmental contaminants, and unsafe consumer and industrial products. Within this broad mandate, responsibility regarding drinking water quality is situated within the Water Quality and Health Bureau (WQHB). The Bureau is the federal lead on the development of the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality. Drinking water related activities include :

• establishing priorities for guideline development, in collaboration with the provinces and territories;
• conducting health risk assessments of chemical and microbiological contaminants of drinking water, incorporating considerations of the contaminant's presence in drinking water and the potential exposure to Canadians;
• requesting exposure data on specific contaminants from provinces and territories, for incorporation into guideline supporting documents;
• promoting drinking water research and participating on the establishment of priorities for research on water quality in Canada; and
• developing Emergency Health Advisories I Drinking Water Guidance Values, at the request of a government or department, for specific drinking water contaminants (including pesticides).

The Mandate of PMRA consists of a primary objective "to prevent unacceptable risks to people and the environment from the use of pest control products", furthered by the following ancillary objectives:

• support sustainable development designed to enable the needs of the present to be met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs;
• seek to minimize health and environmental risks posed by pest control products and encourage the development and implementation of innovative, sustainable pest management strategies by facilitating access to pest control products that pose lower risks and by other appropriate measures;
• encourage public awareness in relation to pest control products by informing the public, facilitating public access to relevant information and public participation in the decision-making process;
• ensure that only those pest control products that are determined to be of acceptable value are approved for use in Canada.

Principles

The WQHB and the PMRA, in carrying out their respective mandates, will cooperate and support each other in meeting their responsibilities, while avoiding duplication of effort, in relation to environmental and health protection and in other areas of mutual interest.

The WQHB and the PMRA will explore options related to methodology, approaches and interpretation of information leading to harmonized or compatible recommendations, without compromising objectives and obligations of either program.

The WQHB and the PMRA will foster strong working relations that support and promote scientifically sound decisions by establishing and maintaining an effective process to share information and exchange knowledge, taking into account agreements with other agencies and constraints imposed by statutory and common law on the sharing of confidential information.

The WQHB and the PMRA will advise each other on policies, programs and regulations that may affect the activities of the other.

Implementation

PMRA agrees to provide WQHB with:

• access to the ranking of pesticides for their potential to contaminate surface and groundwater, using methods agreed upon jointly between PMRA and WQHB;
• access to the models used to do the ranking;
• results of surface and groundwater modeling to predict levels in water;
• summaries of monitoring data on levels in surface water received from other federal departments, provinces and others;
• pesticide regulatory decision documents which will provide a summary of toxicity endpoints (e.g. acceptable daily intake (ADI), acute reference dose (ARD) and cancer slope factors (Q*)), acute and chronic drinking water levels of comparison (DWLOCs) based on aggregate exposure;
• information on PMRA's re-evaluation work plan.

WQHB agrees to:

• engage PMRA in guideline priority-setting process to ensure pesticides requiring drinking water quality guidelines are given due consideration by the FPT Committee on Drinking Water;
• provide PMRA with proposed Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality on pesticides for review and comment prior to submission to the FPT Committee on Drinking Water;
• provide PMRA with monitoring and exposure information on pesticides made available by provinces and territories;
• promptly inform PMRA upon becoming aware of a drinking water concern.

PMRA and WQHB jointly will:

• inform and consult each other on national and international activities in which either organization is participating which may affect the programs and mandate of the other;
• collaborate and consult on priority-setting for research programs design and regulatory activities of mutual interest;
• participate in joint working groups having shared objectives or interests as required;
• meet annually to discuss priorities and implementation of MOU;
• report, as appropriate, to the Health Canada Water Committee on progress;
• develop a joint issue management strategy for matters that require authoritative federal communications and are related to the mandates of both parties;
• provide to each other, in a timely manner, documents and related media materials on issues of common interest specific to pest control product issues. The Parties also agree to provide to each other, on request, information to support briefing and correspondence needs of Ministers and senior management.

Accountability

Accountability for the success of this MOU rests with the Director of the Alternative Strategies and Regulatory Affairs Division of PMRA and the Director of the WQHB.

Terms of Memorandum of Understanding

This MOU will come into effect on the date of the last signature and can be amended at any time by the agreement of both parties.

Participation in this MOU can be terminated by mutual consent or by one party providing three months written notice to the other party.

Approved:

Susan Fletcher
Assistant Deputy Minister
Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch
Health Canada
Date signed: 02-05-05

Karen Dodds
Executive Director
Pest Management Regulatory Agency
Health Canada
Date signed: 03-05-05